The present invention relates generally to a video layout system and, more specifically, to a system for fitting and correcting copy in a video display prior to typesetting.
A video layout system described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,872,460 provides a system which permits the accurate, rapid preparation for photocomposition of retail and classified display ads, complex straight matter, page composition, area composition and yellow page ads, and is compatible with a broad range of photocomposition and typesetting equipment. The system eliminates the previously required mark up and paste-up of ad elements while reducing the amount of keyboarding relative to that required in heretofore conventional photocomposition.
In this system, copy scanned or keyed into tape is read into a display terminal and is displayed as text on a video screen for layout. Using a keyboard-directed cursor and copyfitting keys, the text is positioned and displayed in actual point size and set width for any desired type font on the screen to match the precise layout desired for the final ad. Layout instructions and text data are processed by a computer in a terminal control unit. Copyfitting, movement of copy blocks, corrections, and changes in point size, film advance or leading, line measure, indent, skew and other typographical functions are immediately displayed in the copy on the screen together with parameter messages constituting layout instructions associated with line blocks of text in the displayed copy. When the operator determines that the displayed copy matches the desired layout he may instruct a tape punch to perforate a paper tape with all text and layout function codes required to drive the typesetting equipment.
While the above described video display system has operated successfully it has been found that it would be desirable to have the feature of being able to view texts blocks that are wider than the text area of the display screen of the CRT. For example, in the above described video layout system the text information section of the CRT screen is approximately 50 picas wide, and if the software programming is allowed to give commands to set type out to 100 picas wide, the text further than 50 picas from the left hand margin of the text display section will be off the CRT display screen, and therefore not visible to the operator. Known past practice has been to scale down the text area to view the entire text content at a magnification of less than 1.